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Top children’s hospitals to trial new ‘care techniques’

£500,000 programme aims to
reduce avoidable death and harm to acutely sick children being
treated in UK hospitals by 2016

Health experts have been awarded over half a million pounds to
develop and trial a suite of quality improvement techniques that
aim to reduce preventable deaths and error occurring in the UK's
paediatric departments - currently there are an estimated 2,000
healthcare and non-healthcare amenable deaths each year compared to
the best performing countries in Western Europe.

The Situation Awareness for Everyone (S.A.F.E) programme, led by
the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), will
trial models of care including the 'huddle' technique - a ten
minute free, frank exchange of information between clinical and
non-clinical professionals involved in a patient's care - in a bid
to encourage information sharing and to equip professionals with
the skills to spot when a child's condition is deteriorating as
well as prevent missed diagnosis.

The two year programme, which is being delivered by the S.A.F.E
partnership - RCPCH, UCLPartners, Great Ormond Street Hospital
(GOSH) and the Anna Freud Centre, who will evaluate the programme -
for the first time, will see 12 hospitals including flagship
children's hospitals Evelina London Children's Hospital, Alder Hay,
Birmingham, Great Ormond Street, Royal Manchester and Sheffield
Children's Hospital working together to implement these techniques
at each of their sites alongside six paediatric departments at
Greater London hospitals.

Funded as part of the Health Foundation's Closing the Gap in
Patient Safety programme, with additional support from WellChild
and UCLPartners, the programme aims to:

Reduce avoidable error and harm to acutely sick children by
2016

Improve communication between all healthcare professionals
involved in a child's care as well as families to ensure treatment
is consistent and of the same high standard regardless of postcode
or class

Close the disparity in health outcomes for children in UK vs
other countries as well as between children's care and adult
care

Involve parents, children and young people to be better
involved in their children's/own care

Dr Peter Lachman, Clinical Lead for S.A.F.E and member of the
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said:

"Inconsistent standards of care across paediatric units are one
of many factors making health outcomes for children in the UK among
the worst in Western Europe.

"Although causes of avoidable child mortality are complex, we
know there is sometimes failure amongst healthcare professionals to
recognise the severity of illness. That coupled with variable
quality of communication across professional boundaries, and with
parent/patient communication, makes it clear that more needs to be
done to address this. That's where S.A.F.E can help.

"Some hospitals already adopt elements of these care techniques
to address these issues however, recent evidence suggests that a
more holistic approach is needed and it needs to be applied at
scale.

"Based on this, we estimate that this programme could reduce
deterioration of children in paediatric wards by at least 50% and
decrease serious outcomes by at least 10%. In addition to this, we
believe that there will be a reduction in serious incidents and a
change in the culture from reactive responses to proactive
prevention of harm. And it doesn't stop there. If proven
successful, there is scope for this model to be rolled out wider so
it not only improves the care of children, but improves the care
delivered to adults in the UK and beyond."

Walter Tann, Divisional Lead Nurse (Children) at Royal
Manchester Children's Hospital (RMCH) says: "RMCH are in full
support of the project by RCPCH and are actively engaged in with
working with the RCPCH over the coming months. We are pleased to
confirm that aspects of Safety Huddles are already an active part
of our working practice in some clinical areas. However, this
project will allow RMCH to work more closely and in partnership
with other major children's hospitals so that we can further
improve safety huddles and ensure their wide scale use across all
our services in the hospital."

The 'Huddle' is an intervention used by Cincinnati Children's
Hospital Medical Centre and has led to improved efficiencies,
improved quality of information sharing, increased level of
accountability, empowerment, and sense of community which has
resulted in an increase in staff's quality of collective awareness
and enhanced capacity for eliminating patient harm

S.A.F.E is being delivered by the Royal College of Paediatrics
and Child Health (RCPCH) in partnership with UCLPartners, Great
Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and Anna Freud Centre